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The Reconstruction Movement

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lack of education and social rights were rampant (Murphy, 1987). Despite all of this, the Reconstruction movement went forward at incredible speeds. Voting rights for the new black citizens were part of this new social change. Even in the northern areas, the new social phenomenon posed by black participation in the electoral process, was remarkable, to say the least. Much of this change in social policy can be credited to the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Union League. These organizations developed during the war years and eventually became strong political branches of the radical wing. While in the South the Reconstruction movement was constantly attack by the local population, usually by making use of intimidation and boycotting, America …show more content…

The poverty and sacrifices of the 1800’s postbellum era were certainly not replicated at the end of the First World War. The new generations of Americans were not lingering in the past, just as their ancestors had done after the national armed conflict. The years between the two world wars produced lasting changes in the American social scene. Urbanization, industrialization, new laws and social openness: they were all crucial in providing the fuel toward a new type of American (Sheldon, 1968). Economic success and social freedoms were part of the advances witnesses by the nation at this time. This was also an era of cultural celebration, which provided the tools for the integration and civil rights movements in the second half of the 20th century. The centuries of servitude and oppression endured by the black population, along with the struggle for the abolition of slavery, were making their mark in American society. New social opportunities pressed black Americans to move, not to the Promised Land that America was supposed to become after the end of the Civil War, but to the Northern and Midwestern states in which racial tensions were not as strong as in the South. This Great Migration, name given to the internal movement of the black man out of rural South to the urban North, led to the discovery of a new social pride for the black man. The Harlem Renaissance was crucial in allowing for social changes in a society that was transforming itself, due to migration, economy, and legal rulings (Johnson, 1944). Unfortunately, the northern states did not offer the warmest of welcomes to the black population migrating from the South. Even though the legal systems were not as difficult as those found in the South, and blacks were offered better opportunities and rights, there were still high levels of prejudice and discrimination. White workers opposed the

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The Voice of Change Throughout the nineteenth century, the African American social and economic life in the United States and parts of western Europe were revolutionized. A period to attain vast racial equality was quickly developed. Du Bois’ various ideas and activism was a key part to sparking the Civil Rights Movement. Du Bois used his journalistic writing to condemn the increased repression of formerly enslaved African Americans in the South in the form of legalized segregation and the rise of lynching.

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The Harlem Renaissance happened from the 1920s to the mid 1930s in Harlem, New York. What caused the renaissance was the migration of more than six million people from the South to the North. Slavery was abolished but it did not stop white supremacy. The aftermath of white supremacy was having the Jim Crow laws created and enforced to the Southern states. The Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation where ninety percent of black Americans lived.

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The Harlem Renaissance was a time of black individualism, a time marked by a vast array of characters whose uniqueness challenged the traditional inability of white Americans to differentiate between blacks. In fact, the Harlem community is made up of African-Americans and Western Indians. These blacks number more than 10,000 protested against racial discrimination and injustice from the white American society. Many changes took place during the emergence of Harlem, where many blacks came to Harlem, although they were mainly immigrants from the countryside and agricultural south to urban industrial centers in the north such as Harlem. The majority of Blacks have settled in Harlem.

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In the early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary began to flourish in Harlem, a section of New York City. The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined their expression (Young). The area soon became a sophisticated literary and artistic center; however, issues such as the relationship between the Renaissance and mainstream American culture were exceedingly apparent. The process of how the white people influenced the Harlem Renaissance have not been explored to the same degree. Many of the struggles present in the Harlem Renaissance occurred because it was a time of great change and marked a convergence of vastly different ideologies (Hutchinson).

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Drawing Backgrounds in Red The turn of the 1930s was the Nadir of the Reconstruction, the end of the economic boom of the roaring twenties, and the beginning of the great depression. Meanwhile, America as a hegemon was gearing up for an economic and violent battle with the Soviet Union in a war that would be called World War II and simmer into what is known as the Cold War. At the turn of the 1930s, the reconstruction-era was nearing its end because the force that made up the bulk of its political power and presence President Abraham Lincoln had long since gone and had been replaced by President Hoover who had a much weaker resolve on the racial issues and goals of reconstruction. At its end, only the reintegration of the south out of Reconstruction’s three goals was achieved, the goals of integration of black people into the economic and political framework of the South had failed.

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The Reconstruction Era occurred in 1865, it was was a period after the Civil War in which America was focused on rebuilding the broken South. In 1867, the Radical reconstruction gave former slaves a voice in government. During this era, formers slaves gained a platform in the government, with some blacks as Congressmen. However, not everyone supported the idea of Reconstruction. Less than a decade after the Reconstruction period, a small group composed of democratic ex-confederate veterans, white farmers and white southerners sympathetic to white supremacy joined forces together to form the Ku Klux Klan.

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The Harlem Renaissance demonstrated progress in the cultural spheres for black people. “By the end of the 1900's, the Great Migration was starting as hundreds of thousands of African Americans moved into bigger cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Harlem, which covers three square miles, contained almost 175,000 African Americans, which gave the neighborhood the largest population of black people in the world.” (A New African) Harlem became a well known place for African Americans with all backgrounds. The Harlem Renaissance was a period where Black Americans protested through poetry, painting and sculpture, swing and jazz, dances and opera.

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The Harlem Renaissance (c. 1918–37) was a turning point in American History for African Americans; their voices, stories and struggles were documented and heard through literature. There was a misconception or “dream” among the slaves that once they were freed they

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But, when these officials were elected to Congress, they passed the “black codes” and thus the relations between the president and legislators became worst (Schriefer, Sivell and Arch R1). These so called “Black Codes” were “a series of laws to deprive blacks of their constitutional rights” that they were enacted mainly by Deep South legislatures. Black Codes differ from a state to another but they were stricter in the Deep South as they were sometimes irrationally austere. (Hazen 30) Furthermore, with the emergence of organizations such as the Red Shirts and the White League with the rise of the Conservative White Democrats’ power, efforts to prevent Black Americans from voting were escalating (Watts 247), even if the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S constitution that gave the Blacks the right to vote had been ratified in 1870.

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The five main factors essential to understanding race relations in the post-war South are the politics of white supremacy, limited opportunities in careers and housing for both African American and Caucasian veterans, the economic boom, voting rights and the county unit system. After World War II, the South faced difficulties as demagogues of segregationist values were being challenged by leaders in the black communities to give equal rights to those of all races. World War II demonstrated that while the fight for freedom had been won over seas it had not been successful in America. Both Caucasian and black veterans came back to difficulty in integrating into society. While the South faced the economic demands of a post-war era it left very few opportunities in

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Part 1 As I looked through Drop Me Off in Harlem, I gathered that the Harlem Renaissance was the era where African Americans actually had a reason to take pride and rejoice in their identity for the first time ever. Harlem was where they found something that was distinctively theirs. African-American literature, art, music, and notions were venerated and recognized everywhere in America. It was this era where big names such as Aaron Douglas, Duke Ellington, Evelyn Preer, George Snowden, Claude Mckay, and W.E.B. Dubois came alive. Before this era, African Americans were seen as servile, unqualified, unskillful and only seen as a laborer.

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The Harlem Renaissance was a movement that reflected the culture of African Americans in an artistic way during the 1920’s and the 30’s. Many African Americans who participated in this movement showed a different side of the “Negro Life,” and rejected the stereotypes that were forced on themselves. The Harlem Renaissance was full of artists, musicians, and writers who wrote about their thoughts, especially on discrimination towards blacks, such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance was an influential and exciting movement, and influenced others to fight for what they want and believed in. The Harlem Renaissance was the start of the Civil Rights Movement.

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For over ten years in Harlem, New York and all across the United States, the Harlem Renaissance was a vast uprising of African Americans. The birth of many artists and writers during this time period demanded the freedom of blacks and the ability to express themselves. The Great Migration The "New Negro Movement" was a blossom of African Americans coming together to be united.

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The Harlem Renaissance, better known as “The New Negro Movement” began in the 1920’s. It was a product of centuries of African American suffering and oppression especially in the southern states. As White Supremacy began increasing in the south, Jim Crow laws involving the segregation of African Americans did as well. Thousands of African Americans began migrating from the south to the urban northern states, specifically to New York. This movement is known as the Great Migration.

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The Harlem Renaissance,was an explosion of African American culture,especially in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Making use of the literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, contributors to this movement sought to revive the attributes of the “African American” from the stereotypes that the white had labeled them. They also sought to let loose of conservative moral values and bourgeois shame about aspects of their lives that the white majority would have seen as an reinforcement of racist beliefs. The contributors to this movement did not particularly belong to a major school of thought. They came from all over the country to give rise to this movement.

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